Get Into the Gruit

The newest thing in beer is an ancient style that casts aside bitter hops in favor of an intriguing palette of herbs, spices and plants you've likely never heard of

By

William Bostwick

Updated Oct. 12, 2012 2:25 p.m. ET

CROWDED INTO A refrigerated shed in rural Sonoma County on a recent afternoon were dozens of beer kegs, a few cases of bottles, boxes of hops just delivered from Washington state and two brewers, one wearing industry-standard rubber boots, the other barefoot. That was my first sign that shoeless Brian Hunt and his brewery, Moonlight, were, in fact, far from industry standard. My second was a plastic bag of long, dark green leaves. "Those don't look like hops," I said. Mr. Hunt poured me a drink. "They're not."

Talk Smart About Beer - Off Duty

Those particular leaves were Labrador tea. Nearby were sacks of mugwort, yarrow and bee balm, all of which Mr. Hunt uses to make a little-known style of beer called gruit, brewed in a centuries-old tradition, without hops. Today's craft brewers are hops-mad. Most use the plant with expressionistic abandon in ever-bitterer brews: dry-hopped, fresh-hopped and continuously hopped double, triple and imperial IPAs. Eschewing hops is rebellious (in fact, technically illegal—by government definition, a "malt beverage" must include some hops, so even Mr. Hunt uses a little). But in beer's seven-millennia history, it's nothing new.

Brewers only began using hops regularly 700 or so years ago, when they discovered that the thumb-size cones of resinous leaves would help keep beer fresher longer. Before that, beers were flavored with dozens of different herbs and spices—medicinal, symbolic or just plain potent. In 1699, diarist John Evelyn wrote that a dose of borage would "cheer the hard student." Henbane, once a popular addition, is hallucinogenic, and in some doses, lethal. Hops, a sedative related to cannabis, would have seemed tame by comparison—one reason, some argue, that promoting temperance through hopped beer was a Protestant cause; Martin Luther drank it at Worms.

"Is this reactionary?" Mr. Hunt asked. "Yes. All the beers in this country use just one species of plant: hops. What if there were a hundred species? Where could this go?" Working in the gruit style, brewers like Mr. Hunt can blend flavors untasted for centuries and also tell stories untold until now. MateVeza's Morpho uses floral hibiscus and minty bay leaf to transport drinkers to the South American jungle; Cambridge Brewing Company's Weekapaug Gruit, made with locally plucked bog myrtle, says there is more to Massachusetts swamps than cranberries. While other beers use hops trucked in from time zones away, Moonlight's Working for Tips thinks local: Its redwood twigs come from a tree in the brewery's front yard.

These beers take some explaining—one reason they can be hard to find. "It's easier to do in a brewpub, when you can interact with people about it," said Dave McLean, owner of San Francisco's Magnolia Gastropub and Brewery. Take a beer like his sweet gale–, yarrow– and wild rosemary–flavored Weekapaug Gruit (like the brewer at Cambridge, Mr. McLean is a fan of the band Phish, and the song Weekapaug Groove): It's unique, but not aggressively so. When introducing unfamiliar flavors, a delicate touch is best. Revolution needn't shout. Mr. Hunt jokes about "roasted-chicken gruits," too heavy on the rosemary. "My intention is to make a delicious beverage. I don't want a beer to taste like a Christmas tree," he said—even if, one day, he might brew a gruit made with one.

Brewed Alchemy

Some of these craft brews from around the country contain ingredients not found in a beer mug since the Middle Ages; others are entirely newfangled. All are prime examples of the heady gruit style.

ENLARGE

Moonlight Working for Tips
F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal (2)

Moonlight Working for Tips, 5.5% ABV

Made with redwood twigs plucked from the Santa Rosa, Calif., brewery's front-yard tree, this taste of NorCal combines warm notes of roasted hazelnuts with a bright, tingly bitterness from the twigs' freshest green shoots.

ENLARGE

MateVeza Morpho
F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal (2)

MateVeza Morpho, 6.0% ABV

Flavored with hibiscus, bay and the South American herbal tea yerba mate, and named after a brilliant blue butterfly attracted to fermenting fruit juice, Morpho tastes like a sweetly tropical cocktail of lemon, papaya and mint.

Darker than the others, its slightly smoky grains give a sturdy base to tinny sweet gale, yarrow and wild rosemary. A chord of rich, loamy lows and zesty menthol highs: a campfire in a foggy pine forest.

The roots and spices here include caraway, anise and gentian, but bay leaf dominates—at least at first, before the beer takes a curiously Southeast Asian turn with notes of ginger, lemongrass and a twangy, lime-like sourness.

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